Monday, November 29, 2010

If all goes well, at the point at which anyone sees this post, I'll be flying over the Pacific Ocean on the way back from Nepal, via Hong Kong.

As someone who has had all to much interaction with airport security theater, I'll be keeping notes on what the experience of travel to and from Asia is like these days and will report on the blog anything interesting I observe when I get back.

Meanwhile, people might want to read the Atlantic Magazine's James Fallows who knows more about this than I ever expect to.

To wax earnest for a moment: here are things I know, first hand, about airport procedures in the rest of the world, versus what's becoming standard via the TSA.

In China, you don't have to take off your shoes (usually) or be patted down (that I have seen). Only the flights to the US have extra-special security drills. And this is Communist Red China with its locked-up dissidents I am talking about.

Same in Japan, when I was there this summer.

In Australia, for domestic flights you don't have to produce identification of any kind, take off your shoes, etc. Last week I flew from Sydney to Canberra and back on Qantas. It was just like Amtrak procedures in the US: you type in your confirmation number at a terminal, it spits your ticket out, and you get on board. That's it. (You pass through a keep-your-shoes-on metal detector, no pat-downs.)

In Korea, you go through security procedures when you get OFF the plane and go into the airport, but that's a separate story. As soon as the TSA learns about that...

And in Israel, the former head of airport security says the new imaging machines don't do any good.

Seriously, the security-versus-liberty situation is always a balance. But who in public life is speaking for the "liberty" side of the balance at the moment? Where is the check on new machines, procedures, requirements from the TSA -- or the politician who will ask, Is this worth it? Worth the money, worth the intrusion, worth the frisking of children, worth the frisking of uniformed pilots, worth the police-state air? Conceivably most Americans would still answer "yes," but I'd like to hear the question raised.

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What's this blog about?

My musings on current events, current projects, current anxieties and current delights.

I started this under the Bush regime when any grain of sand thrown into the gears of the over-reaching imperial state seemed worthwhile.

I have worked to elect more and better Democrats -- and to hammer the shit out of them once we get them in office so they do the things their constituents want and need. It's a big job.

I have endured the dashed potential for a more transformational regime under Obama. The man has made himself an accomplice in the imperial crimes of his predecessor as well as committing his own. He has also almost certainly been the most progressive president most of us will live to see. I fear we'll look back on his years in office with mild gratitude for a respite from national leadership that was habitually stupid and vicious, as well as wrong.

Visitors here will find a lot of commentary on books I'm reading. I am very intentionally reading intensively offline these days. When it feels hard to find direction, it's time to learn something new.

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About Me

I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. I am currently an independent consultant to organizations seeking "help when you have to make a fight."